March 2014

We're feeding the pregnant ewes now (and the very greedy ewe hoggs that are runnng with the singles); the Heptavac should arrive tomorrow for rapid adminiistration - a glitch (Dan thought I'd ordered it and vice versa) means we'll be a few days later than usual, and the tup and cull ewe go away on Wednesday.

We're to be at Dunblane by 8am, so we're going to load them on Tuesday night and leave them with hay and water so that we can make a quick, stress free getaway in the morning. The two have been in the byre together for more than a week, so they're quite happy to bunk up together and the trailer's well big enough for two. I've filled out the movement licence and got the tags ready, so I think we're OK. I'm not really looking forward to it - Nellie was one of my favourite ewes.

We record the number pf eggs we collect from each of our two henhouses each day. At the end of each month, I total it and, with reference to the number of days in the month and the number of hens in the house, I calculate productivity.

For February, the green house, with the remaining 27 of the 40 pullets that I bought in October is at 82%. The brown house, with 17 hens I bought POL April last year and 28 Black Rocks that I bought day-old in Spring 2011 ????, is at 47%. I suspect most of the production is coming from the 2013 birds :-)

We took the barren ewe and the tup to the abattoir on Wednesday. We were told to be there at 8am, and it's an hour and a half away so we decided to load them the night before. The trailer was duly bedded with straw, bucket of water and pile of hay - then the two followed a bucket in for the "last supper". Car hitched up ready for a quick getaway in the morning :-)

In the morning, both were lying cudding - we'd kept them together for a couple of weeks so they knew each other. Off we went, on time at 6.30am. Arrived just on 8am; did the paperwork and went to unload them.

The two cows, heifer and heifer calf were housed on 20th December. It was the first time in the new barn extension and, with usage, there are a couple of modifications to be made before next winter - and I won't be bedding the feed area, as it proved impossible to keep it adequately clean. So next year, I'll just clean it every day and deep bed the lying area.

We applied pour-on a couple of weeks ago with the intention of turning them out this weekend coming but Dan was at home yesterday, it was a lovely day and a good forecast for the next five days, so we decided to put them out in the afternoon.

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Who is the Accidental Smallholder?

Hello, I'm Rosemary Champion, aka the Accidental Smallholder. I'm a smallholder in the east of Scotland and started this website to help other people who are interested in smallholding to find their way, and to share my experiences.